Interlocking Barbs
by Something Witty About Ramen
Summary: A book, the sun, and social grooming: a recipe for a good day. No spoilers, sort of AU, heed the genre!


A bit of concentrated fluff for a Dean/Castiel kink meme over on LJ a few months ago. This wingfic is different, I swear!

Dean spends the month after he kills Lucifer adjusting to this new Second Sight shit. Bobby's is either a great or terrible place for this--there's a lot of psychic residue all over the property, which gives Dean the mother of all headaches at first, but he learns to filter the unimportant stuff out real quick which cuts down on the strain. There are certain things he can't filter out without losing the sense entirely, though. The demonic shadow that clings to Sam has been fading, slower than Dean would like but at least it's going. There's a weird buzz in the air every morning before the sun rises and every evening after it sets, the between-times that Dean's developing a proper wariness of. Castiel has wings all the time, and even folded at rest they're longer than his body is tall, so the ends always vanish through the floor. There's nothing not weird about that, but Dean is getting used to them.

One sunny day, Dean finishes tinkering with his latest I-don't-wanna-go-crazy project and wanders through the salvage yard until he finds Castiel. Castiel is on his stomach on the roof of an old car, wings half-spread to catch sunlight while he reads one of Bobby's spellbooks the way normal people read favorite novels. For a moment Dean just stands there, noticing that Castiel's wings don't pass through the ground out here but instead rest on it like they're just as corporeal as the rest of him. He also notices that they're looking a little ragged, especially up near where they join Castiel's body.

"When's the last time you ran a comb through those things?" Dean asks when he's looked his fill. Castiel looks up from his book with a confused look on his face, but he sees where Dean was looking and catches on.

"It's harder to reach the feathers near my back," he explains. "They're not as important as the ones further out, so I haven't tended to them as frequently."

Dean's watched a lot of Discovery Channel and Animal Planet in his day, and he gets the implication: there hasn't been anyone to help Castiel reach those feathers since he told the other angels to go fuck themselves. It makes Dean feel bad for him all over again, so he hauls himself up next to Castiel on the car roof and gets comfortable. "Alright, show me what to do. I never fixed anyone's feathers before."

After an awkward moment where Dean wonders if he's going to get shoved off the car, Castiel sits up and maneuvers himself so that he can face Dean without whacking him in the face with a glowing wing. He curves one wing over his shoulder just so, delicately grips the edge of one of the long tip feathers, and pulls. A smooth tear appears, and Dean is about to protest or ask what the fuck that's about or _something_ when Castiel says, "that's what some of my feathers are going to look like. This is how you fix it." He lines up the two sides of the tear and grasps the feather with thumb and index finger at the point where the tear is closest to the feather's shaft, and then he moves his fingers out from the shaft like he's closing a Ziploc bag, leaving no sign of the tear at all.

"Huh," Dean says. "That actually looks pretty easy." Castiel smiles at this, lays back down and returns to his book. Dean scoots around until he can lean over without toppling and gets right to work on the neglected feathers. He studies them as he does; they feel like feathers, and he guesses the weird but not unpleasant dusty smell is like normal feathers too, but to his eyes they seem to be made of pure light. Each fine little bit of feather glows with its own inner light, making Castiel's wings seem white in the equally bright sun. Some of the feathers are a bit twisted around, so Dean makes them lie flat with their neighbors. Whenever Dean moves to different parts of either wing, Castiel moves the wing a little to accommodate him, and the unexpected range of motion almost distracts Dean from the task at hand. He stays focused, though, and when he can't find any more messy feathers he finally looks up to find Castiel nearly dozing under his hands.

"I guess I know what I'm doing when I retire from hunting," Dean says, trying to ignore the swell of affection and other stuff at the sight of Castiel blissed out.

"Don't even think about it," Castiel replies. "If you so much as consider preening another angel's wings I'll tie you up in Bobby's panic room and keep you as my slave."

"Sounds kinky. Will I at least get sex?"

"Have to mess up my feathers somehow."

The banter comes to an awkward halt. Dean's lower back is starting to hurt from way he was hunched over angel wings for apparently a while, so he nudges Castiel aside and lays down next to him. Castiel's wing resettles over Dean, but the air underneath is somehow no warmer than the air above so Dean lets it stay. "What are you going to do, now that the big stuff's over?"

Castiel drops the spellbook he'd been reading on the hood of the car and folds his arms for a headrest. "I was going to follow you around and hope you never asked about it." He looks at Dean and cracks a million-watt angel smile, and Dean doesn't even know why until his face starts hurting from grinning so much.

He rolls over into the last inches of Castiel's personal space, gets right up in his business. "So you kinda like me, huh?" Castiel nods, still smiling but a little flushed now, which really only helps. "Good," Dean says, "I'd hate to be stuck with someone who can't stand me," and when he leans in for the first of many kisses Castiel is brighter than the sun.


End file.
